The Best Smartphones You Can Buy in 2025

TL;DR – These Are the Best Smartphones:

1. OnePlus 13

Our top pick

OnePlus 13

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A great design, excellent display, superb performance and impressive cameras all combine in a discounted flagship that deserves consideration.

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Samsung makes some of the best smartphones, and while I can’t deny that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is a great phone, it’s also just a little too boring this year to stand out, especially when it sells at such a premium price. Between that and OnePlus truly hitting its stride this year, the OnePlus 13 lands a huge victory in 2025. It delivers on design, performance, and value for a trifecta that helps it stand above the crowd.

On the face of the OnePlus 13, you’ll find a display that’s ready to rival the best around. The 6.82-inch OLED display offers everything you’d expect from a high-end phone: a sharp resolution, a fast and variable refresh rate, and a staggering peak brightness, which OnePlus claims hits 4,500 nits. While I couldn’t verify the exact degree of brightness, I can confirm it’s a gorgeous and dazzling display that doesn’t struggle with visibility.

Inside, the OnePlus 13 makes the most of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. This comes with a powerful CPU and GPU combo that rivals the best iPhones and runs circles around them in 3DMarks’ graphics benchmarks. Whether it’s everyday performance or gaming brawn, the OnePlus 13 has it in heaps. Plus, the phone comes with 256GB of storage as a baseline, providing plenty of room for games and apps, and the 6,000mAh battery helps the phone run longer.

Circle around back, and you’ll find a triple-camera array. Each sensor offers a 50MP resolution for clear details. The sensors work together wonderfully, offering great colors, tons of flexibility, and even powerful video capture. The OnePlus 13 may not be quite as adept at zooming in, since it relies on a 3x telephoto sensor instead of the 5x you’d find in the iPhone 16 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro, or Galaxy S25 Ultra. But in just about every other aspect of photography, the OnePlus 13 is competitive with these other flagship phones.

All of this quality is packed into a phone that looks and feels great. OnePlus offers a few different styles, going beyond just changing colors and actually swapping out materials and textures. The exterior protects the guts of the phone with robust ingress protection that can keep out water when submerged or hit with pressurized jets.

Getting all of this in a phone is what you should expect from the best phone any given year. But OnePlus 13 really pulls a fast one by delivering it all for $899. The Pixel 9 Pro XL is the next closet phone that can compete reasonably, and that still costs $1,099 and has just half the storage. The iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S25 Ultra cost even more. It’s this lower price that really juices the value of the OnePlus 13 to push it to the top.

2. Google Pixel 9 Pro

Google Pixel 9 Pro

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An elegant design, exceptional cameras, a quality display, and extensive software support make the Pixel 9 Pro a champ among smartphones.

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The Google Pixel 9 Pro is a brilliant phone when it comes to photography. It offers a triple-camera system on the rear that provides a ton of flexibility, and each sensor in the stack snaps quality photos, whether you want to punch in on a distant subject or zoom way out to capture a landscape. Even the selfie camera snaps vibrant, sharp photos.

Pixel 9 Pro – Main Camera Samples

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The phone itself is no less pretty than the photos it takes. Google has refined the design of its Pixel line again, and the Pixel 9 Pro benefits greatly. It’s still somewhat tame with aluminum and glass, not opting for the titanium of Apple’s and Samsung’s flagships. But it comes together elegantly.

Thin bezels wrap around a modest 6.3" display, which is a bit of a star. It’s reasonably sized without making the Pixel 9 Pro an unwieldy behemoth like the iPhone 16 Pro Max or Galaxy S24 Ultra, though you can go that route by upgrading to the Pixel 9 Pro XL. The display is also excellent, with a super-bright OLED panel, smooth refresh rate, and poppy color.

The Pixel 9 Pro may not be the fastest phone on the market, as its Tensor G4 chip lags well behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Apple’s A18 Pro, but it’s plenty peppy for everyday use and works quickly with AI applications. And it still runs games reasonably well too. Google is also backing the phone up with longer-term software support than you’ll find on a lot of Android devices.

3. Apple iPhone 16 Pro

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

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The iPhone 16 Pro brings a lower starting price than the Pro Max and more compact form factor but still gets all the camera capabilities and potent performance.

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Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro is a well-rounded powerhouse starting off at $999. It has a staggering amount of overlap with the Google Pixel 9 Pro, right down to its display size, camera count, price, and weight. While I found the cameras more reliable on the Pixel 9 Pro, I won’t discount the excellent quality the iPhone 16 Pro is capable of with some tweaks (particularly for the ultra-wide and selfie sensors).

This year, the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max get the same camera systems, so you can really think of them as the same phone at two different sizes. That’s good news if you’ve got smaller hands and want all the best capabilities but in a smaller phone, as I found the Pro Max hard to manage with one hand despite being a large person. Despite its smaller dimensions, the iPhone 16 Pro still gets a 6.3" display thanks to extra slim bezels. The Pro Max bumps that up to a beefy 6.9" display.

Performance is excellent on the iPhone 16 Pro. Its new A18 Pro chip easily keeps up with everyday operation and can smoothly run demanding games like Wuthering Waves without breaking a sweat. And with a 120Hz OLED display, gaming performance can come in handy.

It would be nice to see more storage in the base model, as 128GB is a little slim when it comes time to load up games and take advantage of the high-resolution photos and videos that iPhone 16 Pro can capture. On the bright side, the iPhone 16 Pro uses a USB 3.0 Type-C port that can help you back up your files more quickly to your computer in order to free up space.

4. Google Pixel 8

Google Pixel 8

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Running on a G3 Tensor chip, you’ll enjoy solid cameras, smart AI functions, and a bright, beautiful OLED display for an affordable price.

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The Pixel 8 might not be the best of the best or a new model in 2025, but it’s still got a lot to offer. The Tensor G3 chip inside improved on the G2 not only with increased performance but, critically, with better thermals. Since heat is the enemy of most phone components, being able to avoid it will help the longevity of the device.

The other big get for the Pixel 8 is that Google promised seven years of OS, security, and feature updates when it launched. That means it still has a long life ahead of it. Thanks to its age, the price of the phone has dropped considerably though. So you can snag the Pixel 8 for a mid-range price of $500. While many people may think the Pixel 8a is the smart mid-range option, the full-fat Pixel 8 at just $100 more is a smart pick thanks to the superior design, which includes Gorilla Glass Victus on the front and back, improved water resistance, and better cameras.

On the note of cameras, the Pixel 8 boasts an excellent 50MP main camera that snaps great shots in light or dark settings. The ultra-wide sensor is solid in daylight, but struggles in the dark. And the selfie camera is nice and sharp with a wide field of view. The Pixel 8 may not offer the best cameras out here, but it’s great for the price.

Poco X5 5G – Photos

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5. Poco X5 5G

Poco X5 5G

3

Ultra cheap phone offering 5G, smooth performance, and a crisp display, but be prepared for underwhelming cameras and modest gaming performance.

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If your budget is tight, you can still get a surprisingly good phone with the Poco X5 5G. While it launched in 2023, it’s still offering a lot for just $220. It’s even received updates to Android 14 since its launch. That kind of support isn't always a given on a budget device. That said, there’s no saying how many more updates it might get going forward.

The Poco X5 5G immediately sets itself apart from other budget phones with its display. You’ll get a large, 6.67" display on the front, and it’s not really compromising on quality. That screen offers a sharp 1080x2400 resolution good for 395ppi. Better still, it’s an AMOLED panel running at 120Hz, making for smooth and punchy visuals. It may not be as bright an AMOLED panel as some flagship phones out there, but it’s great for the money.

The Poco X5 5G also runs a competent SoC in the Snapdragon 695 5G. It’s not winning any speed awards, but when I tested the phone, it kept up with everyday operation and even some gaming in Call of Duty Mobile. It also had enough memory to tackle some multitasking. With insufficient memory being one of the quick ways to end up with a device that doesn’t stand the test of time, it’s good to see Poco opted for a 6GB base.

Unfortunately, some corners had to be cut, and the cameras on the Poco X5 5G are simply not the best. The main sensor does OK in bright conditions, but the ultra-wide is seriously lacking. At least the selfie camera is half decent.

RedMagic 9S Pro – Photos

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6. RedMagic 10 Pro

RedMagic 10 Pro

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The RedMagic 10 Pro combines exceptional performance with extreme sustain in a wonderful package.

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While most of the phones on this list have respectable gaming performance, the RedMagic 10 Pro goes above and beyond as I found in my review. It not only made the jump to the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, which provided a considerable performance boost, but it also makes the most of that chip with its cooling performance. Since the RedMagic 10 Pro has an active cooling fan, effectively pulling air through a duct across that Snapdragon chip, it can let the processor run at extreme speeds for longer without running into as much thermal throttling as the competitors.

In my benchmarking, the RedMagic 10 Pro had some of the absolute fastest results of any phone I’ve tested, especially where gaming is concerned. And even if it was occasionally beaten in a single benchmark run, the RedMagic 10 Pro’s ability to sustain its performance ultimately makes it better suited to gaming. Factor in the stunning 7,050mAh battery, and this phone is geared up for gaming like very few others.

The 6.85-inch display on the RedMagic 10 Pro is also brilliant. It’s large, high-resolution, fast at 144Hz, and completely uninterrupted from corner to corner. That is to say, there’s no visible selfie camera cut out to interfere with your view of your games. The selfie camera is cleverly hidden underneath the display, and while that does reduce its quality, everything is secondary to gaming on this phone.

As a proper gaming phone, the RedMagic 10 Pro also has some enhancements for the experience. It features boosted touch responsiveness on the display so inputs are detected faster. It includes two remappable, capacitive shoulder buttons that are incredibly convenient to have while gaming, so you can move and aim with your thumbs and handle skills with your index fingers. For select games, the phone also supports upscaling and frame interpolation, effectively letting your game look sharper and smoother even if the game itself doesn’t natively run at higher resolutions and frame rates.

All of this comes packed into rather respectable hardware. The phone’s build and design are sturdy and elegant, not too gaudy for a gaming phone. You get quality stereo speakers and even a headphone jack. And RedMagic packs in a case with the phone. You don’t get the best cameras in the world, and network support won’t be a match for mainstream phones like the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S lineup, but if gaming is your focus, RedMagic stands apart. It’s all the more mind-blowing that the RedMagic 10 Pro costs just $649.

7. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7

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The thinner design makes the Fold 7 feel more normal, but it still offers a big internal display for that 2-in-1 flexibility.

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Samsung overhauled its top foldable this year, and it’s proven a worthy change. The new Galaxy Z Fold 7 has shrunk down by 26% compared to the earlier Fold 6. That makes it just over 4mm thick when unfolded and 8.9mm thick when folded. It's plenty to close to the thickness of other non-folding smartphones, like the 8.9mm-thick Asus ROG Phone 9, for example.

Even as Samsung managed to trim down the dimensions of the phone, it still kept the battery capacity from the prior model at 4,400mAh. While this doesn’t make it a two-day warrior, our reviewer found the Galaxy Z Fold 7 easily lasted through the day during testing, generally with some charge left the next morning. That's even after playing games for four hours one of the days.

While the Galaxy Z Fold 7 may not be specifically for gaming, it still can hold up. Part of the equation is the new screen sizes. The Z Fold 6 had a very tall outer display that wasn’t ideal for a lot of games that targeted different aspect ratios. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a more common 21:9 aspect ratio on the outer display. When combined with the thinness of the phone, it’s easy to use the Galaxy Z Fold 7 just the same as any ordinary smartphone. Of course, when you want to go big, you can unfold the device and use the 8-inch interior display for gaming, media, multitasking, or whatever else you feel like.

Another key aspect of the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s performance is the Snapdragon 8 Elite inside, a potent chip in every device I’ve seen it in so far. The device manages solid bursty speeds, and it has enough horsepower to run games like Honkai Star Rail. One downside of the thin design is that it will heat up considerably during long, sustained workloads like gaming, and its performance will sag. So you’ll still be better off with a gaming phone or even just something thicker if you’re planning to do a lot of gaming.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7’s $1,999 price tag may be a hard pill to swallow. It’s more than what you’d pay for a OnePlus 13 and Redmagic Astra – an excellent phone and great gaming tablet – combined. But if the convenience of one gadget that does it all is worth it to you, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is a great device that fits the bill and stands out as the best foldable on the market right now.

What About the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge?

Having wrapped up testing, I've concluded the Galaxy S25 Edge won’t be joining the ranks of the best phones on the market. While it is a surprisingly thin phone, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it impressively thin. Phones have been this thin in the past, and I think there’s a reason they’ve gotten thicker over the years. The S25 Edge makes sacrifices to get that thin. It has a smaller battery than comparable phones. It may offer the same speedy Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset powering other great phones, but it quickly runs into thermal throttling when trying to take full advantage of that chip. And the S25 Edge only gets two rear-facing cameras when it’s priced like a phone that should have three or four quality cameras to offer. All of those trade-offs to shave a couple millimeters from the device just don’t work out in this phone’s favor.

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